


ghost in your eyes

by Seito



Series: tick tock, forward and back (time travel fics) [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Dimension Travel, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Parallel Universes, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 03:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17459552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seito/pseuds/Seito
Summary: There are ghosts in Noctis’ eyes. That hurt Regis’ heart more than anything else.The man that wandered the quiet halls of the Citadel was not his son. But in all the ways that mattered, he was Regis’ son.





	ghost in your eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VolxdoSioda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/gifts).



There was no warning.

One moment, Regis was entertaining yet another mindless squabble between two minor councilmembers, the next moment the sound of cracking glass and magic crystallizing filled the air. Regis had seconds to look up, just in time for the space to twist, ripping open. A black blur dropped to the ground as Regis was on his feet, sword materializing in his hand in a single breath.

His heart sputtered for just a fraction of a second as the black blur revealed to be a person. Black hair and blue eyes, a young man with a snarl on his face. His black shirt shredded, hundreds of tiny cuts bleeding, weeping like red rain. The look in his eyes was practically feral, wild, gleaming manically in the light.

Regis’ next breath was stolen from him as young man lit up. The phantom lights of a Lucis Caelum's Armiger, whirled to life; the splintering of ozone, lightning dancing across his skin. Like a warrior king, missing only his armor, leaking bloodlust and killer intent, the pressure of strength, rage and vengeance.

“I won't fall for this trick again!” the young man howled.

Then he flew.

Regis barely had time to defend. The young man struck, crossing the throne room in a single breath. Regis’ own Armiger swung, weapons flying to parry the other’s. Their swords grinded together, screeching a horrid song of war.

Sparks flew, igniting the air as a firaga spell dropped. Regis threw up a shield, saving himself from a being burnt to a crisp. Out of the corner of his eye, Clarus moved, jumping forward. He didn’t get far before that Shield of the Just slammed into him, sending him crashing into a wall.

“Clarus!” Regis shouted.

Magic pulsed and he dropped a Blizzaga hoping it would at least slow down the assislant. It didn’t.

It was like the cold didn’t phase him. He didn’t falter in his pursuit, merely stepped back from the center of the spell and then pushed forward, warping in a single step.

“Who are you?” Regis asked.

The young man merely snarled. His eyes, so achingly familiar, glittering, tainted and turning red. Power creeping into the atmosphere, pressing down like an oppressive gravity. It was like the gods were descending.

Regis felt his knees begin to buckle as the young man swung with such strength; it was all he could do to defend. The Ring of Lucii begun to glow, bathing the room in light and Regis felt a knot loosen in his chest. The Kings of Yore would be taking part in this battle.

It was in that soft blue light, that the young man finally falter. A minute hesitation, a glimmer of doubt. A single breath, eyes wide with a small but fleeting hope.

“Dad?”

What? Dad?

But…

The young man collapsed, swords dispelling and shattering. Magic faded, disappearing like a rolling fog. Regis’ own weapons fading as he caught the young man. Hands slick with blood, Regis tried to understand.

Dad? But....? Blue eyes flashed in his mind.

_Aulea’s eyes._

“Who are you?” Regis asked.

-.-.-

“How are you Clarus?” Regis asked.

Clarus rolled his shoulder. “The doctors say I’ll live to save your ass for another day. Nothing an elixir couldn’t fix. Can’t say the same about the wall I was thrown though.”

Regis chuckled lightly. “And our guest?”

Clarus cast a look in the direction of their morning intruder.

Shackled to the bed, the young man slept. Gone was the torn clothes, thick white bandages replaced them. The scent of blood and decay still hung in the air; his wounds too extensive to be healed merely by magic. They would leave scars, Regis knew, scars that crisscross over the porcelain white skin.

“The doctors said exhaustion. Not stasis, though he had been riding that edge for awhile. Which not surprisingly given the power he was throwing around in the throne room,” Clarus said, relaying what the doctors had told him.

Clarus let out a soft mourn sigh. “They also said his wounds were numerous and old. There were plenty of existing scars, wounds that would had been fatal to anyone but a Lucis Caelum. He's been fighting for a long time.”

That Regis had no trouble in believing.

“You really believe he's yours and not a bastard from your father or grandmother?” Clarus asked.

“He called me Dad,” Regis said. “And he had Aulea's eyes.”

Clarus sighed heavily this time. He ran a hand over his head. “A bastard would be easier to explain than a child that couldn't possibly exist.”

Regis chuckled. True. He was incapable of having children and Aulea was nearly 10 years dead.

“We’ll know by tomorrow,” Clarus said. “The tests will be done by then.” Clarus hesitated. “What do you intend to do if he is your son?”

Regis shrugged. “Get to know him? Try and find out how and why he came here and if he wants it, how to get back to wherever he came from?”

“You're not going to declare him your heir?” Clarus asked.

“Not unless he wants it,” Regis said. “You didn't see that look in his eyes, Clarus. I will not burden him with the Crown if he chooses to stay here. I think he has fought long and hard enough.”

Regis paused. “Does Gladio really not want to inherit?”

Clarus laughed. “If you ask him, he would much rather go on an adventure to see the world instead ‘being a stuffy old king’.”

“So I'm a stuffy old king, I see how it is,” Regis said with a hmph.

Clarus just laughed harder. “Gladio is eight. What did you expect?”

-.-.-

Regis knew he should exercise more caution. Despite all the evidence, despite the singing from the Ring of Lucii, despite the physical proof, the young man, still shackled, still slumbering, was an unknown.

The tests proved he was Regis and Aulea's son, for all the impossibilities that entailed. The magic he witness a week ago in the throne room, the might of a Lucis Caelum at their peak, armiger full and elements dancing. The Kings of Yore murmured softly, awake and aware, cooing over the newest arrival.

Flesh and blood aside, the young man was an unknown, an impossibility. They didn't know his motivations, didn't know how he came here or why. Until he woke, there was no way to prove if he was a threat or not.

Yet Regis found himself drawn to the infirmary every free moment he had gotten.

“You're not real.”

“You're awake,” Regis said.

The young man was sitting up. The leather cuffs that held him to the bed were already destroyed, but Regis had expected that. There was really no holding a Lucis Caelum, not one with that much magic.

His eyes though… gone was the wild feral look, replaced with a heavy exhaustion. He looked so brittle, ready to collapse under the weight of whatever he was carrying.

So… this was the son Aulea and he could have had, a son from another world.

“I am real,” Regis said. “But, I supposed if I was a figment of your imagination that would be the first thing I would say.”

The young man choked on a laugh. “Dad!”

Regis mentally patted himself on the back for being able to coax out a laugh.

“Yes and no, I'm afraid,” Regis said.

The young man tensed. Regis felt the magic rise, rumbling and rolling in like a thick fog.

“You see, the tests confirm you are my son. But given that I'm sterile and thus do not have any children, I'm afraid you're a bit of an oddity,” Regis said calmly. “So that rules out the possibility that you're a bastard from my father and the possibility of time travel. Parallel dimension travel perhaps? Either way, you are far from where you originally came from.”

He bit back the word “son”, no matter how much he wanted to say. It was not his right. There was another Regis that this young man called ‘Dad’.

“What?” the young man asked, looking stunned. “I- This is… Insomnia?”

“Yes,” Regis confirmed.

“Is the Chancellor of Niflheim Ardyn Izunia?”

That… was a curious question. “Niflheim currently doesn't have a Chancellor, considering the Empire fell over a decade ago.”

By Lucis and Tenebrae’s hands, by the campaign led by Regis himself.

“Daemons problems?”

That was alarming. “No one has seen daemons in centuries. There are stories of ancestors who sealed them away in the deepest dungeons, but beyond that, no,” Regis said.

“No prophecy?”

“What prophecy?” Regis asked, puzzled.

He was… starting to get the grim picture from where his son had come from.

The young man closed his eyes, letting loose a ragged bitter laugh. “This is too good to be true.”

“But true it is,” Regis said. “Will you give me your word that you're not here to destroy Insomnia and her people?”

“I swear it on the Crystal's guiding light and the blood that flows through my veins,” the young man said. The magic flickered and twisted, the weight ever so heavy.

Regis noticed he didn't include the break clause, the loss of magic but it was one of the family oaths. Just one more piece of evidence that he really was a Lucis Caelum, a properly trained one.

“Your oath is heard and accepted,” Regis said. He should, as king, force a stricter oath, but… No, not when his son looked so frail. It was foolish but he refused to be anything but optimistic.

The young man tensed again. “So what questions do you have for me?”

“Just one,” Regis said.

“Only one?” he asked, wary.

“My Crownsguard will want to ask and pester you with tons of questions because they're a paranoid bunch,” Regis said, amused. Because Clarus kept sighing and Cor was prowling. To say nothing about Weskham's reaction and, honestly? Cid was bound to show up any day now.

With the oath made, there was only one question that Regis wanted to know the answer of. Anything else, he was willing to wait, to give his son this brief reprieve before all of Crownsguard descended upon him.

“Alright then, what's your question?”

“Your name?”

The young man froze. This. This was the question that broke him, the hammer to glass, cracking and shattering. Regis saw it in his eyes (blue eyes, just like Aulea's), saw them squeeze shut, shoulders trembling.

Perhaps this was too cruel of Regis to ask. Perhaps this was the one grain of truth that would convince his son this was real and yet not even remotely close to his original world.

“Noctis, Noctis Lucis Caelum,” he said ever so quietly.

_Noctis_. That was a good name. An excellent name.

“Hello Noctis,” Regis said.

-.-.-

Time rolled slowly but surely. Another week passed before Noctis was set free from the infirmary and it was very telling that he only put up a token protest over… well everything. The questions, the doctor fussing, even Regis visits, Noctis quietly sat through them all.

His release though, it became clearly obviously that there was something far greater wrong.

There are ghosts in Noctis’ eyes. That hurt Regis’ heart more than anything else.

The man that wandered the quiet halls of the Citadel was not his son. But in all the ways that mattered, he was Regis’ son.

And _Noctis_ …

Noctis spent every waking minutes soaking up the sights. His hands always reaching out to touch, the lightest of touch as if everything would break with too much pressure. There was reverence in his eyes, a quiet awe of disbelief. There was pain, reaching for something not truly there.

Regis didn’t know what Noctis was seeing, what ghosts haunted him. He felt Noctis’ heavy gaze, the lingering tingling sensation that told him that Noctis expected him to vanish, like puff of smoke blown away by the wind.

(Noctis fell apart the first time he saw Cor, tears free falling. He clung so tight to Cor’s sleeve; Cor awkwardly comforting the young man he had originally intended to interrogate. Regis didn’t dare to ask why seeing Cor had caused such a reaction.)

(Noctis violently flinched when Gladio had finally met him, trembling like a man facing his execution at the hands of this child. There were apologies that fell from Noctis’ lips, apologies that left Gladio confused.)

Regis knew war, knew soldiers who fought for so long until they burned out. Aulea’s death ignited a streak of recklessness in him that Weskham refused to let him live down. He had marched, brought Niflheim to its knees, ending the the damn war that plagued his Kingdom for centuries.

He knew what it meant to carve yourself out, leaving nothing left behind but an empty shell. The feeling when you had nothing left to lose and the grief and sorrow that followed. That glimmer of second chances, the weight of apologies burdening him down.

Time, space and unwavering support (the same way his friends had dragged him back from the brink.) Regis granted Noctis the freedom to go as he pleased, joined him as Noctis wandered through the hallways, chasing ghosts.

Clarus worried, as it was his job and role as Regis’ friend and Shield to do so, but Regis didn't have the heart to treat Noctis as a threat. Not when Noctis look so frail, so broken, seeking refuge in the gardens, in the sunlight.

Regis cannot even begin to fathom what Noctis’ original world must be like. He could guess, yes. Piece the puzzle together ever so careful just by looking at Noctis’ reactions and words. Insomnia must have fallen, burn to ashes. The other Regis must be dead, but perhaps dead the longest, given the way Noctis didn’t fall apart at seeing him. He could guess that Niflheim had something to do with it, or maybe daemons were the ones responsible.

The best Regis could offer him was his unwavering support.

He hoped it was enough.

-.-.-

“So that’s your boy?” Cid asked.

“Not really mine,” Regis said.

“That’s not what the look in your eyes says,” Cid said. “You’ve already adopted him. The fact that he is truly your flesh and blood is just the cherry on top.”

Cid always spoke the truth. With each day, it grew less and less important that Noctis was his flesh and blood, that he had Aulea's eyes. There was nothing more than Regis wanted than to chase away some of the ghosts in Noctis’ eyes that haunted him, to let him rest and heal.

“Make sure you tell him,” Cid said.

“He already has a father,” Regis protested. He had no desire to replace the Regis in Noctis’ memories.

“Bah, let him decide whether he's going to call you dad or not,” Cid said with a dismissive wave. “But he needs to know that he's welcomed here, that he's safe here.”

Regis blinked. But… didn't Noctis already know that?

-.-.-

Cid may have had a point.

“Your Majesty.”

Noctis stood before Regis, spine rigid. His eyes, for once, were clear. Ghosts and grief carefully hidden.

This was not the wounded warrior standing before him.

This was a king.

“Yes?” Regis asked.

A minute hesitation, lasting only between two breaths. Noctis bowed, stiff and formal. “I would like to formally request permission to stay here in Insomnia. If His Majesty requires it, I will swear an oath, the full oath.”

Regis was moving from behind his desk, pulling Noctis into a hug.

Noctis trembled in his arms.

“Noctis,” Regis said. “You are always, always, welcomed here in Insomnia. If you want to call this place home, that has always been only for you to decide. We are family, no matter where you had come from.”

“Are you sure?” Noctis croaked, voice breaking.

“Yes,” Regis said with as much conviction as he could pour into those words. “I know I am not the father who raised you, and I will not take his place. Regardless if you want it, this is your home, son.”

Noctis clutched him tight and Regis said nothing at the growing patch of wetness felt.

“Okay, _okay_ ,” Noctis said. “I would really like to stay.”

It wasn't much, but this was all Regis could offer him. A port in the storm, a safe haven, until his son was ready to walk tall again.

**Author's Note:**

> Mini Omake:  
> Gladio: Noctis you should become king!  
> Noctis: Err um... but aren't you the prince? *because awkward son does not want to you know, displace someone who has been training for this position, even if Gladio is only eight*  
> Gladio: You're already a stuffy old man! You'll make a good king!  
> Noctis: ...thank you?
> 
> -.-.-
> 
> Volxdo said... idk something. Either way, I'm laying the blame at Volxdo's feet. But Volxdo said something, described a wonderful amazing AU and the idea has been rumbling in my head for weeks, until it spat my own version. So *jazz hands* ta da!
> 
> Please leave a review on your way out :D


End file.
